Brindle's First Birthday Party

Brindle's birthday fell on a Monday before I was supposed to work a Walk to Emmaus Thursday through Sunday. Mom was going to come up and keep B for me during the Walk so I decided to have the party on Wednesday afternoon so that she could be there. It actually worked out good because having it at lunch meant I had time to clean up and finish packing that night. And then we had another party at church that night! Brindle likes to extend her birthday like I do ;)

I decided to do a "little Indian" party. Native American stuff is big right now so I knew I'd have a lot of inspiration to look at. I went pretty simple, though.

I had been really wanting to buy Brindle a teepee for her first birthday but have you ever looked at how much those cost?? Close to $150 for a decent one. No, thanks. So I found a tutorial online on how to make one and Kanyon said we could do it. We finished it at midnight the night before but we loved how it turned out. We're keeping it in storage for some fun sleepovers in the future since it was way too big to stay out all the time. We don't have a playroom so maybe if we do in the future, we can.

I made a white chocolate two-layer cake with lemon buttercream frosting. I really have no idea why I chose that except that she had lemon ice once and loved it. It turned out really good!

She wasn't so sure about making a big mess, especially with everyone staring at her...

I think Kanyon ate more of her little cake than she did.

I decorated with fringe banners in the kitchen, they turned out so cute! And so easy to make.

We had lots of friends and family there to celebrate with us!

Brindle got lots of great presents, too. Here she is sitting in her present from Nana and Papa (Kanyon's parents)... unsure of where to put her hands because of the tutu :)

She loves that chair... Grandma and Poppy (my parents) got her a beautiful play kitchen that is a big hit with her and all the kids that come over.

It was a great day celebrating her first birthday!

Catching Up a Bit.

I guess I've become that person who only blogs every couple months now... Oh, well.

I've been busy getting used to being at home full time, creating a schedule, etc. I'm really loving it. I feel so much more balanced, like I'm able to finally give myself fully to being a mom and a wife and taking care of a house. Even though I was working part time, I never felt like I was able to be fully present wherever I was because I was thinking how I needed to be the other place. I don't know how full-time working moms do it.

Brindle is approaching 17 months and is changing so much! Although her weight hasn't... She is a petite little thing, only growing in height and head circumference. She is 19 pounds and still in her infant car seat. Facing backward. 

She is really exploring the world, loving being outside and into everything. She wants to be wherever I am and doing whatever with me. She is learning new words every day. Just this morning, she learned how to say "moon" to the one on her nightstand. I'm constantly amazed by every new thing she learns.

Kanyon has been really busy getting some new land that he took over this year ready for planting, working a Kairos, and is about to start team meetings for a Walk he is working later. He and Brindle are best buds. They have several minutes of funny faces that they make at each other and giggle over before bedtime every night.

Brindle is constantly jabbering these days. My favorite words are "oof!" (ouch), "cuck" (milk, drink, water?), and "pu-ppeee" (puppy, said like its two words). The first thing she says when she wakes up is "Pu-ppeeee?". She loves her Zeb. They have a strange relationship. They've only ever touched each other by force. They get so excited to see each other, run to the other, but as soon as they get to close, the excitement is too much and they run the other direction.

Okay, I'm going to go actually get something done while Brindle naps. Have a good day!

P.S. I just realized the post about Brindle's first birthday party never got published, its still labeled "draft"! Oops. I'll finish that one and publish it.

Holidays

Wow, let's pretend that November 12th isn't the date I last posted, please?

Life has been great, hectic, nerve-racking, joyful, warm, uncertain... all sorts of things since my last post. Since then, I have quit my job, gone through the end of harvest, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Deer season, my birthday, my first dance class, and my first week to really be at home as a "stay at home" mom (who incidentally don't actually stay at home much). 

Quitting was wonderful, a little sad, but mostly wonderful. I ended on a good note with the staff and the church and felt that I had adequately prepared the woman taking my place. It was a good feeling. I wasn't even too nervous about the whole lack of any more pay checks coming my way (until later). I think Kanyon has really loved me being at home more because sometimes I actually cook something for breakfast and lunch. It's thrown a whole lot more variety into his every day :)

Right before I last posted, we had Brindle's first birthday! I'll give it its own post, though.

For Thanksgiving, my parents came up here. We had Kalith and Vaughn over that afternoon and had a great time. I love Thanksgiving meal! I could eat it throughout the year. I thought this picture of my mom making dressing was typical of both of them - Mom's eyes are closed and Brindle is dancing.

After that, it got a little crazy. We had a church Christmas party, training the woman taking my place at work, a small group Christmas party, three family Christmases in Welch, drove to Houston for Christmas Day with my family, hunting at the deer lease and my birthday. I've technically not been working since December 13th but feel like I haven't noticed until last week!

Christmas was so fun and such a whirlwind! We see so much family in such a small amount of time. I wish we could have a whole week to visit with them. In a 36 hour span, we had our immediate family Christmas with Kanyon's parents and siblings and their kids, then Mama Brown's that night, and Meme's the next afternoon.  

After that weekend, we left to go to Houston - a 9 hour drive with a 13 month old and a dog. It actually went a lot better than I imagined! Even with me realizing after a few hours that I completely forgot to pack any diapers. At all. I found out diapers are really expensive at the convenience store in the middle of nowhere.

Being in Houston was so relaxing, we did little besides eat, sleep, and visit - besides opening presents. We did leave the house to go play our annual charades night with friends and the boys went skeet shooting. Brindle did a lot of sleeping. I guess she was exhausted from the weekend before.

Sorry for the quick post on Christmas but I guess since it was a month ago now, I'm not remembering many details! We had a great Christmas, though, and are always so excited to see family. Hope your's was good, too!

Next, going even further back to Brindle's first birthday party...

Croup

Even though my mom assures me that Brindle is not a "sickly" baby, I feel like we have have dealt with some ailment every month. And reading through her baby book confirms it.

She deals with allergies at all times and is on Zyrtec every night but we've also had reflux, thrush, RSV, double ear infection, sinus infection, and last week, we had croup. Through all of them, she recovered quickly (RSV being the exception by a little) and still had a smile on her face all the time. So I am, by no means, complaining because they are all normal and I am SO THANKFUL that those are all we've had to deal with.

She came down with croup the weekend before her first birthday - also opening weekend of deer hunting season, so needless to say, Kanyon was at the deer lease. I told Kanyon I could tell something didn't feel good but I couldn't put my finger on it. That mommy intuition is good stuff. Within a few hours, her voice got steadily weaker.

At the height of it in the middle of the night, when she could hardly breathe and wouldn't be anywhere except on my chest, and I bundled her up in fifty blankets and walked up and down our driveway so that the cool night air would help relieve her swollen airway, I thought to myself "this is what motherhood is." 

One of my strongest memories of childhood is my dad walking down our street, my head on his shoulder, in the humid Houston air in the middle of the night to help me breathe during one of my many bouts with croup. I remember not thinking the words exactly but feeling grateful for him taking care of me, even though I was very young.

As I held Brindle at 3:00 am on our driveway (which is a LOT darker without the City of Houston street lights), I remember being so grateful. Grateful that I was getting to show my baby girl the same love and provide the same comfort to her that my parents did for me. She had her eyes closed most of the time but occasionally, she would open them as she laid her head on my chest tilted up to my face and smile behind her paci. I thought my heart would burst every time she did. I knew that she knew what I was doing for her. It may be one of the sweetest, best moments as a mom that I have experienced so far.

Life is about to change.

(No, I'm not pregnant again.)

Blogging has been put on the back burner, as if you hadn't figured that out, for me in the last year. I have a weird relationship with it. I really enjoy writing and I had great aspirations that blogging for me would be this great outlet. But then when I sit down to actually do it, and it was this way before I even had Brindle, I get all nervous and self conscious about just letting my thoughts flow and my posts end up being more informative than anything. I've had one post in the three years of blogging that I feel was really up to my aspirations and that frustrates me. So maybe that is in my subconscious when I think "man, I really need to blog, it's been a while" and then don't do it.

Well, here's my attempt at breaking the rut.

This week, I told the staff at FBC Lamesa that I will be leaving mid-December. There are several factors that are going into me finally making that decision, all of which are more about me and less about "them". I am leaving in good relations with the church and everyone has been supportive, although sad enough to make me not feel like I am easily replaceable, ha. In all honesty, I feel good about this for both me and the church. We (the church staff) are in a transition stage and it felt like a good time for me to seamlessly transition out. A part of me has wanted to do this for a long time now but something in my Spirit kept telling me to wait and it finally feels like its time now.

I am so incredibly grateful for the almost 4 years that I will have been there and truly feel that God placed that opportunity in my lap right when I needed it. In a time when most college graduates have had to settle for a job that their degree doesn't apply to, I got the awesome "luck" of being hired in a small town with little to no ministry jobs available to do a job tailored to my strengths. I grew and matured a lot because of it, the highs and most definitely the lows.

I am very much looking forward to what this will mean for me. I am excited about the change. I don't know exactly what it's going to look like yet. I have had several thoughts bouncing around in my head ever since I became pregnant from expanding Kanyon's leatherwork business, to teaching work out classes, to expanding my own Mary Kay business (this one is a definite), to teaching dance in Lamesa again. So by no means will I be trying to "slow down", which isn't the problem. I'm excited about the variance that will become available to me.

Of course, I'm leaving out the most beneficial part of leaving a job - being with Brindle more. But honestly, I haven't really felt like I've been "away". She is with her Nana one and a half days a week, and that is extremely beneficial for her, I believe. I will most likely still have Vaughn keep her a little during the week so she gets her Nana time and I can do some Mary Kay work without someone wanting to rip up my order sheets. And then the rest of the week, I have had her.

I chose mid-December instead of end of December so I wouldn't be rushing back from Houston after Christmas day to work two days and then be done for good. I am relieved that this all happened at the end of the year. It just feels right to finish off a year and start something new in January. (I don't count mid-December as my "start of something new" since it will be crazy town as always during the holidays and I probably won't even notice I'm not at work).

So there's the latest concerning any big news. We've got a big week ahead of us starting tomorrow. Opening day of deer season, Landon competing for Tech's Rodeo Team in Abilene (making a quick day trip there Sunday - yikes with a baby), BRINDLE'S FIRST BIRTHDAY on Monday, harvest beginning, Brindle's birthday party on Wednesday, and then I am working a Walk to Emmaus Thursday through Sunday. Wow, I hadn't really laid it all out till just now... I have to go to bed.

But I'll leave you with a picture of a cute bunny...

Fall is finally here!

I would update the blog with all the pictures and details of what all we did in August and September so far, but that just overwhelms me! So I'll just touch on the high points.

In early August, Brindle and I flew to Houston for a few days with my mom while Dad was in Denver visiting my brother. We had a great time visiting a lot of friends and Kanyon's sister, Kyla, and her family. We went to the beach and Brindle loved it!

She's only ten months old and she's already made two round trip plane rides! That's her momma's girl.

The week after that, we drove to Kerrville for the weekend for a little family reunion. And we did some more swimming in the river that Brindle loved! We've got a fish on our hands.

She is so ready for us to let her go in that water. She squealed and clapped the whole time. We had such a great time with the cousins!

A couple weeks after that, I had the pleasure of watching one of my best friends, Lauren, get engaged!

 It was so exciting and I'm so happy for you, Lauren!

Brindle had her 9 month well check later in the month and we found out that she is 17 lbs, 4 oz and 27.5 inches, which put her into about the 25th percentile. Still no teeth! She is a petite thing, still wearing only size 1 shoes! She is an active little girl, very alert and into everything. She's pulling up on everything and I'm sure its only a matter of days before she starts walking.

We are going through a rough phase right now where she is waking up in the middle of night again and we find her standing and talking and playing. I'm told that its normal when they go through a big developmental stage, like pulling up, but I'm ready for it to pass!

The cotton is looking good and Kanyon is ready to start turning off the irrigation systems. Harvest will be here before we know it!

Our little girl is so much fun and we love being her parents. She's become such a daddy's girl lately and I love seeing the two of them together. She hates to see him walk out the door anymore!

This last picture is hard for me to look at - she looks like such a little girl and not a baby in it! I keep telling myself its just a trick of the light or something.

We got some good rain this week and my parents are coming this weekend. Its a great week!